El Nino Returns?

The past two decades have seen the coffers of many an insurance and re-insurance company drained horrendously through record payouts as a result of clearly escalating levels of disasters caused largely by extreme weather conditions. Stand by for more.

Scientists believe they are observing a similar build-up of global environmental conditions to that which led to the “El Niño” effect—the devastating droughts, fires, floods, mudslides and extreme cold waves and ice storms of the late 1990s.

The first region to experience a repeat of this phenomena would be the tropical Pacific. U.S.-based National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (noaa) experts have warned of a possible approaching El Niño: They have observed enhanced cloudiness and precipitation over the equatorial Pacific for the first time since the phenomenon struck in 1997-98.

Should noaa’s warning prove valid and an El Niño of equivalent impact to that of its predecessor actually strike, the results will have massive impact on a global economy already under stress.

An additional factor also becomes apparent. Any diversion of funds from the task of strengthening national security to that of staving off and handling “natural” disasters could prove a god-send to any terrorist group presently awaiting its chance to strike at the U.S. or any other Western nation.

We are not yet at the end of the first quarter of the new year, and already the signs on the horizon are most foreboding.